Following the communist revolutions of the 20th century all "means of production" became the property of the state as representative of "the masses". Private property ceased to exist. While moral rights of the creator were recognized and economic rights acknowledged with a one-time cash award, all subsequent rights reverted to the state.
With the transformation of many communist countries to a market system most of them have now introduced laws establishing markets in intellectual property rights. Still the high rate of piracy reflects a certain lack of legal tradition.
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Even with the best techniques it is impossible to invent a cryptographic system that is absolutely safe/unbreakable. To decipher a text means to go through many, sometimes nearly - but never really - endless attempts. For the computers of today it might take hundreds of years or even more to go through all possibilities of codes, but still, finally the code stays breakable. The much faster quantum computers will proof that one day.
Therefore the decision to elect a certain method of enciphering finally is a matter of trust.
For the average user of computers it is rather difficult to understand or even realize the dangers and/or the technological background of electronic transmission of data. For the majority thinking about one's own necessities for encryption first of all means to trust others, the specialists, to rely on the information they provide.
The websites explaining the problems behind (and also the articles and books concerning the topic) are written by experts of course as well, very often in their typical scientific language, merely understandable for laymen. The introductions and other superficial elements of those articles can be understood, whereas the real background appears as untouchable spheres of knowledge.
The fact that dangers are hard to see through and the need for security measures appears as something most people know from media reports, leads directly to the problem of an underdeveloped democracy in the field of cryptography. Obviously the connection between cryptography and democracy is rather invisible for many people. Those mentioned media reports often specialize in talking about the work computer hackers do (sometimes being presented as criminals, sometimes as heroes) and the danger to lose control over the money drawn away from one's bank account, if someone steals the credit card number or other important financial data. The term "security", surely connected to those issues, is a completely different one from the one that is connected to privacy.
It is especially the latter that touches the main elements of democracy.
for the question of security see:
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~ 1900 BC: Egyptian writers use non-standard
1500 an enciphered formula for the production of pottery is done in Mesopotamia
parts of the Hebrew writing of Jeremiah's words are written down in "
4th century
487 the Spartans introduce the so called "
170
50-60
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2000
Digital technologies are used to combine previously separated communication and media systems such as telephony, audiovisual technologies and computing to new services and technologies, thus forming extensions of existing communication systems and resulting in fundamentally new communication systems. This is what is meant by today's new buzzwords "multimedia" and "convergence".
Classical dichotomies as the one of computing and telephony and traditional categorizations no longer apply, because these new services no longer fit traditional categories.
Convergence and Regulatory Institutions
Digital technology permits the integration of telecommunications with computing and audiovisual technologies. New services that extend existing communication systems emerge. The convergence of communication and media systems corresponds to a convergence of corporations. Recently,
For further information on this issue see Natascha Just and Michael Latzer, The European Policy Response to Convergence with Special Consideration of Competition Policy and Market Power Control, http://www.soe.oeaw.ac.at/workpap.htm or
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With the dissemination of their content commercial media are among other things also able to transport values and ideologies. Usually their programming reflects society's dominant social, political, ethical, cultural and economical values. A critical view of the prevalent ideologies often is sacrificed so as not to offend the existing political elites and corporate powers, but rather satisfy shareholders and advertisers.
With most of the worlds content produced by a few commercial media conglomerates, with the overwhelming majority of companies (in terms of revenue generation) concentrated in Europe, the U.S., Japan and Australia there is also a strong flow of content from the 'North-West' to the 'South-East'. Popular culture developed in the world's dominant commercial centers and Western values and ideologies are so disseminated into the most distant corners of the earth with far less coming back.
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Traditional copyright and the practice of paying
Yet again new technologies have altered the way of how (copyrighted) works are produced, copied, made obtainable and distributed. The emergence of global electronic networks and the increased availability of digitalized intellectual property confront existing copyright with a variety of questions and challenges. Although the combination of several types of works within one larger work or on one data carrier, and the digital format (although this may be a recent development it has been the object of detailed legal scrutiny), as well as networking (telephone and cable networks have been in use for a long time, although they do not permit interactivity) are nothing really new, the circumstance that recent technologies allow the presentation and storage of text, sound and visual information in digital form indeed is a novel fact. Like that the entire information can be generated, altered and used by and on one and the same device, irrespective of whether it is provided online or offline.
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Following the commercial success of
New technologies were being invented in Japan.
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Providers of digital information might be confronted with copyright related problems when using some of the special features of hypertext media like
Framing
Frames are often used to help define, and navigate within, a content provider's website. Still, when they are used to present (copyrighted) third party material from other sites issues of passing off and misleading or deceptive conduct, as well as copyright infringement, immediately arise.
Hyperlinking
It is generally held that the mere creation of a hyperlink does not, of itself, infringe copyright as usually the words indicating a link or the displayed URL are unlikely to be considered a "work". Nevertheless if a link is clicked on the users browser will download a full copy of the material at the linked address creating a copy in the RAM of his computer courtesy of the address supplied by the party that published the link. Although it is widely agreed that the permission to download material over the link must be part of an implied license granted by the person who has made the material available on the web in the first place, the scope of this implied license is still the subject of debate. Another option that has been discussed is to consider linking
Furthermore hyperlinks, and other "information location tools", like online directories or search engines could cause their operators trouble if they refer or link users to a site that contains infringing material. In this case it is yet unclear whether providers can be held liable for infringement.
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The
Yet copyright laws also provide that the rights of copyright owners are subject to the doctrine of "
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes (usually certain types of educational copying are allowed)
- the nature of the copyrighted work (mostly originals made for commercial reasons are less protected than their purely artistic counterparts)
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (as a general rule copying may be permitted if it is unlikely to cause economic harm to the original author)
Examples of activities that may be excused as fair use include: providing a quotation in a book review; distributing copies of a section of an article in class for educational purposes; and imitating a work for the purpose of parody or social commentary.
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17th century Cardinal Richelieu invents an encryption-tool called grille, a card with holes for writing messages on paper into the holes of those cards. Afterwards he removes the cards and fills in the blanks, so the message looks like an ordinary letter. The recipient needs to own the same card
- Bishop John Wilkins invents a cryptologic system looking like music notes. In a book he describes several forms of steganographic systems like secrets inks, but also the string cipher. He mentions the so-called Pig Latin, a spoken way of encryption that was already used by the ancient Indians
- the English scientist, magician and astrologer
1605/1623 Sir Francis Bacon (= Francis Tudor = William Shakespeare?) writes several works containing ideas about cryptography. One of his most important advises is to use ciphers in such a way that no-one gets suspicious that the text could be enciphered. For this the steganogram was the best method, very often used in poems. The attempt to decipher Shakespeare's sonnets (in the 20th century) lead to the idea that his works had been written by Francis Bacon originally.
1671 Leibniz invents a calculating machine that uses the binary scale which we still use today, more advanced of course, called the ASCII code
18th century this is the time of the Black Chambers of espionage in Europe, Vienna having one of the most effective ones, called the "Geheime Kabinettskanzlei", headed by Baron Ignaz von Koch. Its task is to read through international diplomatic mail, copy letters and return them to the post-office the same morning. Supposedly about 100 letters are dealt with each day.
1790's Thomas Jefferson and Robert Patterson invent a wheel cipher
1799 the Rosetta Stone is found and makes it possible to decipher the Egyptian Hieroglyphs
1832 or 1838 Sam Morse develops the Morse Code, which actually is no code but an enciphered alphabet of short and long sounds. The first Morse code-message is sent by telegraph in 1844.
1834 the
1844 the invention of the telegraph changes cryptography very much, as codes are absolutely necessary by then
1854 the Playfair cipher is invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone
1859 for the first time a tomographic cipher gets described
1861 Friedrich W. Kasiski does a cryptoanalysis of the Vigenère ciphers, which had been supposed to be uncrackable for ages
1891 Major Etienne Bazeries creates a new version of the wheel cipher, which is rejected by the French Army
1895 the invention of the radio changes cryptography-tasks again and makes them even more important
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During the cold war the U.S. tried to ensure that it would stay ahead of the Soviet Union in technological advancements. Therefore in 1963 the
In the 1960s and 1970s a multitude of AI programs were developed, most notably SHRDLU. Headed by Marvin Minsky the MIT's research team showed, that when confined to a small subject matter, computer programs could solve spatial and logic problems. Other progresses in the field of AI at the time were: the proposal of new theories about
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In the space of flows constituted by today's global data networks the space of places is transcended. Visualizations of these global data flows show arches bridging seas and continents, thereby linking the world's centres of research and development, economics and politics. In the global "Network Society" (Manuel Castells) the traditional centres of power and domination are not discarded, in the opposite, they are strengthened and reinforced by the use of information and communication technologies. Political, economical and symbolical power becomes increasingly linked to the use of modern information and communication technologies. The most sensitive and advanced centres of information and communication technologies are the stock markets. Excluded from the network constituted by modern information and communication technologies, large parts of Africa, Asia and South America, but also the poor of industrialized countries, are ranking increasingly marginal to the world economy.
Cities are centres of communications, trade and power. The higher the percentage of urban population, the more it is likely that the telecommunications infrastructure is generally good to excellent. This goes hand in hand with lower telecommunications costs. Those parts of the world with the poorest infrastructure are also the world's poorhouse. In Bangladesh for most parts of the population a personal computer is as expensive as a limousine in European one-month's salary in Europe, they have to pay eight annual salaries. Therefore telecommunications infrastructure is concentrated on the highly industrialized world: Most telephone mainlines, mobile telephones, computers, Internet accounts and Internet hosts (computers connected to the global data networks) can be found here. The same applies to media: the daily circulation of newspapers and the use of TV sets and radios. - Telecommunication and media services affordable to most parts of the population are mostly restricted to industrialized countries.
This situation will not change in the foreseeable future: Most expenditure for telecommunications infrastructure will be restricted to the richest countries in the world. In 1998, the world's richest countries consumed 75% of all cables and wires.
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Advertising as referred to in most economic books is part of the marketing mix. Therefore advertising usually is closely associated with the aim of selling products and services. Still, developments like "branding" show a tendency towards the marketing of not only products and services, but of ideas and values. While advertising activities are also pursued by political parties, politicians and governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, most of the money flowing into the advertising industry comes from corporations. Although these clients come from such diverse fields, their intentions hardly differ. Attempting to influence the public, their main goal is to sell: Products, services, ideas, values and (political) ideology.
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Global networks require global technical standards ensuring the compatibility of systems. Being able to define such standards makes a corporation extremely powerful. And it requires the suspension of competitive practices. Competition is relegated to the symbolic realm. Diversity and pluralism become the victims of the globalisation of baroque sameness.
The ICT market is dominated by incomplete competition aimed at short-term market domination. In a very short time, new ideas can turn into best-selling technologies. Innovation cycles are extremely short. But today's state-of-the-art products are embryonic trash.
- According to the Computer and Communications Industry Association,
- The world's 13 biggest internet providers are all American.
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In palm recognition a 3-dimensional image of the hand is collected and compared to the stored sample. Palm recognition devices are cumbersome artefacts (unlike fingerprint and iris recognition devices) but can absorb perform a great amount of identification acts in a short time. They are therefore preferably installed in situations where a large number of people is identified, as in airports.
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The dream of a conflict-free capitalism appeals to a diverse audience. No politician can win elections without eulogising the benefits of the information society and promising universal wealth through informatisation. "Europe must not lose track and should be able to make the step into the new knowledge and information society in the 21st century", said Tony Blair.
The US government has declared the construction of a fast information infrastructure network the centerpiece of its economic policies
In Lisbon the EU heads of state agreed to accelerate the informatisation of the European economies
The German Chancellor Schröder has requested the industry to create 20,000 new informatics jobs.
The World Bank understands information as the principal tool for third world development
Electronic classrooms and on-line learning schemes are seen as the ultimate advance in education by politicians and industry leaders alike.
But in the informatised economies, traditional exploitative practices are obscured by the glamour of new technologies. And the nearly universal acceptance of the ICT message has prepared the ground for a revival of 19th century "adapt-or-perish" ideology.
"There is nothing more relentlessly ideological than the apparently anti-ideological rhetoric of information technology"
(Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, media theorists)
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The Internet/Matrix still depends heavily on public infrastructure and there is no dedicated owner of the whole Internet/Matrix, but the networks it consists of are run and owned by corporations and institutions. Access to the Internet is usually provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for a monthly fee. Each network is owned by someone and has a network operation center from where it is centrally controlled, but the Internet/Matrix is not owned by any single authority and has no network operation center of its own. No legal authority determines how and where networks can be connected together, this is something the managers of networks have to agree about. So there is no way to ever gain ultimate control of the Matrix/Internet.
The in some respects decentralized Matrix/Internet architecture and administration do not imply that there are no authorities for oversight and common standards for sustaining basic operations, for administration: There are authorities for IP number and domain name registrations, e.g.
Ever since the organizational structures for Internet administration have changed according to the needs to be addressed. Up to now, administration of the Internet is a collaborative undertaking of several loose cooperative bodies with no strict hierarchy of authority. These bodies make decisions on common guidelines, as
Amazingly, there seems to be an unspoken and uncodified consent of what is allowed and what is forbidden on the Internet that is widely accepted. Codifications, as the so-called
Sometimes violations not already subject to law become part of governmental regulations, as it was the case with spamming, the unsolicited sending of advertising mail messages. But engineers proved to be quicker and developed software against spamming. So, in some respects, the Internet is self-regulating, indeed.
For a detailed report on Internet governance, click here.
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In parallel to the deregulation of markets, there has been a trend towards large-scale mergers which ridicules dreams of increased competition.
Recent mega-mergers and acquisitions include
SBC Communications - Ameritech, $ 72,3 bn
Bell Atlantic - GTE, $ 71,3
AT&T - Media One, $ 63,1
AOL - Time Warner, $ 165 bn
MCI Worldcom - Spring, $ 129 bn
The total value of all major mergers since the beginnings of the 1990s has been 20 trillion Dollars, 2,5 times the size of the USA's GIP.
The AOL- Time Warner reflects a trend which can be observed everywhere: the convergence of the ICT and the content industries. This represents the ultimate advance in complete market domination, and a alarming threat to independent content.
"Is TIME going to write something negative about AOL? Will AOL be able to offer anything other than CNN sources? Is the Net becoming as silly and unbearable as television?"
(Detlev Borchers, journalist)
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According to a still widely held conviction, the global data networks constitute the long desired arena for uncensorable expression. This much is true: Because of the Net it has become increasingly difficult to sustain cultural and legal standards. Geographical proximity and territorial boundaries prove to be less relevant, when it does not affect a document's availability if it is stored on your desktop or on a host some thousand kilometers away. There is no international agreement on non-prohibited contents, so human rights organizations and nazi groups alike can bypass restrictions. No single authority or organization can impose its rules and standards on all others. This is why the Net is public space, a political arena where free expression is possible.
This freedom is conditioned by the design of the Net. But the Net's design is not a given, as
When the World Wide Web was introduced, soon small independent media and human rights organizations began to use this platform for drawing worldwide attention to their publications and causes. It seemed to be the dawning of a new era with authoritarian regimes and multinational media corporations on the looser side. But now the Net's design is changing according to their needs.
"In every context that it can, the entertaining industry is trying to force the Internet into its own business model: the perfect control of content. From music (fighting MP3) and film (fighting the portability of DVD) to television, the industry is resisting the Net's original design. It was about the free flow of content; Hollywood wants perfect control instead" (Lawrence Lessig,
In the United States, Hollywood and
For small independent media it will become very hard to be heard, especially for those offering streaming video and music. Increasingly faster data transmissions just apply to download capacities; upload capacities are much - on the average about eight times - lower than download capacities. As an AT&T executive said in response to criticism: "We haven't built a 56 billion dollar cable network to have the blood sucked from our veins" (
Consumers, not producers are preferred.
For corporations what remains to be done to control the Net is mainly to cope with the fact that because of the Net it has become increasingly difficult to sustain cultural and legal standards. On Nov 11, 1995 the German prosecuting attorney's office searched Compuserve Germany, the branch of an international Internet service provider, because the company was suspected of having offered access to child pornography. Consequently Compuserve blocked access to more than 200
Also in 1995, as an attack on US Vice-President Al Gore's intention to supply all public schools with Internet access, Republican Senator Charles Grassley warned of the lurking dangers for children on the Net. By referring to a Time magazine cover story by Philip Elmer-Dewitt from July 3 on pornography on the Net, he pointed out that 83,5% of all images online are pornographic. But Elmer-Dewitt was wrong. Obviously unaware of the difference between
Almost inevitably anxieties accompany the introduction of new technologies. In the 19th century it was said that traveling by train is bad for health. The debate produced by Time magazine's cover story and Senator Grassley's attack caused the impression that the Net has multiplied possible dangers for children. The global communication networks seem to be a inexhaustible source of mushrooming child pornography. Later would-be bomb recipes found on the Net added to already prevailing anxieties. As even in industrialized countries most people still have little or no first-hand experience with the Net, anxieties about child pornography or terrorist attacks can be stirred up and employed easily.
A similar and related debate is going on about the glorification of violence and erotic depictions in media. Pointing to a "toxic popular culture" shaped by media that "distort children's view of reality and even undermine their character growth", US right-wing social welfare organizations and think tanks call for strong media censorship. (See An Appeal to Hollywood,
The intentions for stimulating a debate on child pornography on the Net were manifold: Inter alia, it served the Republican Party to attack Democrat Al Gore's initiative to supply all public schools with Internet access; additionally, the big media corporations realized that because of the Net they might have to face new competitors and rushed to press for content regulation. Taking all these intentions together, we can say that this still ongoing debate constitutes the first and most well known attempt to impose content regulation on the Net. Consequently, at least in Western countries, governments and media corporations refer to child pornography for justifying legal requirement and the implementation of technologies for the surveillance and monitoring of individuals, the filtering, rating and blocking of content, and the prohibition of anonymous publishing on the Net.
In the name of "cleaning" the Net of child pornography, our basic rights are restricted. It is the insistence on unrestricted basic rights that needs to be justified, as it may seem.
Underlying the campaign to control the Net are several assumptions. Inter alia: The Net lacks control and needs to be made safe and secure; we may be exposed inadvertently to pornographic content; this content is harmful to children. Remarkably, racism seems to be not an issue.
The Net, especially the World Wide Web, is not like television (although it is to be feared this is what it might become like within the next years). Say, little Mary types "Barbie" in a search engine. Click
In reaction to these anxieties, but in absence of data how children use the Internet, the US government released the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in 1996. In consequence the
So, after the failing of the CDA the US government has shifted its responsibility to the industry by inviting corporations to taking on governmental tasks. Bearing in the mind the CompuServe case and its possible consequences, the industry welcomed this decision and was quick to call this newly assumed responsibility "self-regulation". Strictly speaking, "self-regulation" as meant by the industry does not amount to the regulation of the behaviour of corporations by themselves. On the opposite, "self-regulation" is to be understood as the regulation of users' behaviour by the rating, filtering and blocking of Internet content considered being inappropriate. The Internet industry tries to show that technical solutions are more favourable than legislation und wants to be sure, not being held responsible and liable for illegal, offensive or harmful content. A new CompuServe case and a new Communications Decency Act shall be averted.
In the Memorandum
In fact, the "self-regulation" of the Internet industry is privatized censorship performed by corporations and right-wing NGOs. Censorship has become a business. "Crucially, the lifting of restrictions on market competition hasn't advanced the cause of freedom of expression at all. On the contrary, the privatisation of cyberspace seems to be taking place alongside the introduction of heavy censorship." (
While trying to convince us that its technical solutions are appropriate alternatives to government regulation, the Internet industry cannot dispense of governmental backing to enforce the proposed measures. This adds to and enforces the censorship measures already undertaken by governments. We are encouraged to use today's information and communication technologies, while the flow of information is restricted.
According to a report by Reporters Sans Frontières, quoted by Leonard R. Sussman in his essay
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In the summer of 1999 between 1.200 and 2.000 Muslim rebels from Chechnya fell into Dagestan. Rumors say that Russian soldiers closed their eyes pretending not to see anything. During the fightings that started soon, many persons got killed. The hole issue was blamed on Chechnya.
At that time there were rumors that there would be heavy bombing in Moscow in September. And there was. Those two things together brought back the hatred against the Chechnya rebels. The 2nd War between Russia and the Muslim country began. While the first war was lost at home, because the Russians, especially mothers, did not understand why their sons should fight against Chechnya, this time the atmosphere was completely different. In the cities 85% and all over Russia 65% of the Russian population agreed with the war. This time the war was a national issue, a legitimate defense.
The media emphasized this.
Alexander Zilin, a journalist, found out that the truth was far from the one presented in the media: First of all there was no evidence that the Moscow-bombings were organized by Chechnyans. On the contrary it is more than probable that the crimes were organized by a governmental institution for national security. The disinformation was part of the strategy to make the population support another war with Chechnya. The media were part of the story, maybe without knowing. They kept on the government's and army's side, showing only special and patriotic parts of the war. For example the number of dead Russian soldiers was held back.
The U.S.-behavior on this:
The USA would like to intervene but they are afraid of ruining the weak relation to Russia. For years the main topic of U.S.-politics has been the struggle against terrorism. Now Russia pretends to be fighting terrorism. How could it be criticized for that?
The reason for this war is rather cynical: it worked as a public relations-campaign for
At the same time a propaganda-campaign against his rival Y. Primakov (98), formerly the most popular candidate, was spreading lies and bad rumors. Opinion-polls showed very fast that he had lost the elections because of this black propaganda, even before the elections took place.
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In order to be able to recognize a person, one commonly looks at this persons face, for it is there where the visual features which distinguish one person from another are concentrated. Eyes in particular seem to tell a story not only about who somebody is, but also about how that persons feel, where his / her attention is directed, etc. People who do not want to show who they are or what is going on inside of them must mask themselves. Consequently, face recognition is a kind of electronic unmasking.
"Real" face-to-face communication is a two-way process. Looking at somebody's face means exposing ones own face and allowing the other to look at oneself. It is a mutual process which is only suspended in extraordinary and voyeuristic situations. Looking at somebody without being looked at places the person who is visually exposed in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis the watcher.
In face recognition this extraordinary situation is normal. Looking at the machine, you only see yourself looking at the machine. Face biometrics are extracted anonymously and painlessly by a mask without a face.
Therefore the resistance against the mass appropriation of biometrical data through surveillance cameras is confronted with particular difficulties. The surveillance structure is largely invisible, it is not evident what the function of a particular camera is, nor whether it is connected to a face recognition system.
In a protest action against the face recognition specialist
According to
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150
A
The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within a visible range of each other and had a total length of about 4500 kilometers. It was used for military signaling.
For a similar telegraph network in ancient Greece see
About 750
In Japan block printing is used for the first time.
868
In China the world's first dated book, the Diamond Sutra, is printed.
1041-1048
In China moveable types made from clay are invented.
1088
The first of the great medieval universities was established in Bologna. At the beginning universities predominantly offered a kind of do-it-yourself publishing service.
Books still had to be copied by hand and were so rare that a copy of a widely desired book qualified for being invited to a university. Holding a lecture equaled to reading a book aloud, like a priest read from the Bible during services. Attending a lecture equaled to copy a lecture word by word, so that you had your own copy of a book, thus enabling you to hold a lecture, too.
For further details see History of the Idea of a University,
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While most data bunkers are restricted to particular areas or contexts, there are others which act as global data nodes. Companies such as
|
The size of these data repositories is constantly growing, so it is only a matter of time when everybody living in the technologically saturated part of the world will be registered in one of these data bunkers.
Among these companies,
For many years, EDS has been surrounded by rumours concerning sinister involvement with intelligence agencies. Beyond the rumours, though, there are also facts. EDS has a special division for
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900 B.C.
A postal service is used for governmental purposes in China.
500 B.C.
In ancient Greece trumpets, drums, shouting, beacon, fires, smoke signals, and mirrors are used for message transmission.
4th century B.C.
Aeneas Tacitus, a Greek military scientist and cryptographer, invented an optical communication system that combines water and beacon telegraphy. Torches indicated the beginnings and the ends of a message transmission while water jars were used to transmit the messages. These jars had a plugged standard-size hole drilled on the bottom side and were filled with water. As those who sent and those who received the message unplugged the jars simultaneously, the water drained out. Because the transmitted messages corresponded to water levels, the sender indicated by a torch signal that the appropriate water level had been reached. The methods disadvantage was that the possible messages were restricted to a given code, but as the system was mainly used for military purposes, this was offset by the advantage that it was almost impossible for outsiders to understand the messages unless they possessed the codebook.
With communication separated from transportation, the distant became near. Tacitus' telegraph system was very fast and not excelled until
For further information see Joanne Chang & Anna Soellner, Decoding Device,
3rd century B.C.
Wax tablets are used as writing material in Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and Etruria.
2nd century B.C.
In China paper is invented.
1st century B.C.
The use of codices instead of scrolls - basically the hardcover book as we know it today - is an essential event in European history. To quote accurately by page number, to browse through pages and to skip chapters - things that were impossible when reading scrolls - becomes possible.
In the computer age we are witnesses to a kind of revival of the scrolls as we scroll up and down a document. The introduction of hypertext possibly marks the beginning of a similar change as has taken place with the substitution of scrolls with codices.
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Protecting speech on the global data networks attracts an increasing attention. The efforts and the corresponding abilities of governmental authorities, corporations and copyright enforcement agencies are countered by similar efforts and abilities of researchers and engineers to provide means for anonymous and uncensored communication, as Freenet, Free Haven and Publius. All three of them show a similar design. Content is split up and spread on several servers. When a file is requested, the pieces are reassembled. This design makes it difficult to censor content. All of these systems are not commercial products.
The most advanced system seems to be Publius. Because of being designed by researchers and engineers at the prestigious
For more information on Publius, see John Schwartz, Online and Unidentifiable? in: The Washington Post, June 30, 2000,
Freenet web site:
Free Haven web site:
Publius web site:
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This is the largest area of application of biometric technologies, and the most direct lineage to the feudal gate keeping system. Initially mainly used in military and other "high security" territories, physical access control by biometric technology is spreading into a much wider field of application. Biometric access control technologies are already being used in schools, supermarkets, hospitals and commercial centres, where the are used to manage the flow of personnel.
Biometric technologies are also used to control access to political territory, as in immigration (airports, Mexico-USA border crossing). In this case, they can be coupled with camera surveillance systems and artificial intelligence in order to identify potential suspects at unmanned border crossings. Examples of such uses in remote video inspection systems can be found at
A gate keeping system for airports relying on digital fingerprint and hand geometry is described at
An electronic reconstruction of feudal gate keeping capable of singling out high-risk travellers from the rest is already applied at various border crossing points in the USA. "All enrolees are compared against national lookout databases on a daily basis to ensure that individuals remain low risk". As a side benefit, the economy of time generated by the inspection system has meant that "drug seizures ... have increased since Inspectors are able to spend more time evaluating higher risk vehicles".
However, biometric access control can not only prevent people from gaining access on to a territory or building, they can also prevent them from getting out of buildings, as in the
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It has become a commonplace observation that the history of modernity has been accompanied by what one might call a general weakening of identity, both as a theoretical concept and as a social and cultural reality. This blurring of identity has come to full fruition in the 20th century. As a theoretical concept, identity has lost its metaphysical foundation of "full correspondence" following the destruction of metaphysics by thinkers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Witgenstein or Davidson. Nietzsche's "dead god", his often-quoted metaphor for the demise of metaphysics, has left western cultures not only with the problem of having to learn how to think without permanent foundations; it has left them with both the liberty of constructing identities, and the structural obligation to do so. The dilemmas arising out of this ambivalent situation have given rise to the comment that "god is dead, and men is not doing so well himself". The new promise of freedom is accompanied by the threat of enslavement. Modern, technologically saturated cultures survive and propagate and emancipate themselves by acting as the gatekeepers of their own technological prisons.
On the social and cultural levels, traditional clear-cut identities have become weakened as traditional cultural belonging has been undermined or supplanted by modern socio-technological structures. The question as to "who one is" has become increasingly difficult to answer: hybrid identities are spreading, identities are multiple, temporary, fleeting rather than reflecting an inherited sense of belonging. The war cry of modern culture industry "be yourself" demands the impossible and offers a myriad of tools all outcompeting each other in their promise to fulfil the impossible.
For many, identity has become a matter of choice rather than of cultural or biological heritage, although being able to chose may not have been the result of a choice. A large superstructure of purchasable identification objects caters for an audience finding itself propelled into an ever accelerating and vertiginous spiral of identification and estrangement. In the supermarket of identities, what is useful and cool today is the waste of tomorrow. What is offered as the latest advance in helping you to "be yourself" is as ephemeral as your identification with it; it is trash in embryonic form.
Identity has become both problematic and trivial, causing modern subjects a sense of thrownness and uprootedness as well as granting them the opportunity of overcoming established authoritarian structures. In modern, technologically saturated societies, the general weakening of identities is a prerequisite for emancipation. The return to "strong" clear-cut "real" identities is the way of new fundamentalism demanding a rehabilitation of "traditional values" and protected zones for metaphysical thought, both of which are to be had only at the price of suppression and violence.
It has become difficult to know "who one is", but this difficulty is not merely a private problem. It is also a problem for the exercise of power, for the state and other power institutions also need to know "who you are". With the spread of weak identities, power is exercised in a different manner. Power cannot be exercised without being clear who it addresses; note the dual significance of "subject". A weakened, hybrid undefined subject (in the philosophical sense) cannot be a "good" subject (in the political sense), it is not easy to sub-ject. Without identification, power cannot be exercised. And while identification is itself not a sufficient precondition for authoritarianism, it is certainly a necessary one.
Identities are therefore reconstructed using technologies of identification in order to keep the weakened and hence evasive subjects "sub-jected". States have traditionally employed bureaucratic identification techniques and sanctioned those who trying to evade the grip of administration. Carrying several passports has been the privilege of spies and of dubious outlaws, and not possessing an "ID" at all is the fate of millions of refugees fleeing violence or economic destitution. Lack of identification is structurally sanctioned by placelessness.
The technisised acceleration of societies and the weakening of identities make identification a complicated matter. On the one hand, bureaucratic identification techniques can be technologically bypassed. Passports and signatures can be forged; data can be manipulated and played with. On the other hand, traditional bureaucratic methods are slow. The requirements resulting from these constraints are met by biometric technology.
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Disinformation is supposed to be something evil, something ethically not correct. And therefore we prefer to connect it to the past or to other political systems than the ones in the Western hemisphere. It is always the others who work with disinformation. The same is true for propaganda.
Even better, if we can refer it to the past:
A war loses support of the people, if it is getting lost. Therefore it is extremely important to launch a feeling of winning the war. Never give up emotions of victory. Governments know this and work hard on keeping the mood up. The Germans did a very hard job on that in the last months of World War II.
But the in the 1990s disinformation- and propaganda-business came back to life (if it ever had gone out of sight) through Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the reactions by democratic states. After the war, reports made visible that not much had happened the way we had been told it had happened. Regarded like this the Gulf War was the end of the
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After a number of mergers and acquisitions five powerful media conglomerates lead the world's content production and distribution. They operate on an international basis with subsidiaries all around the globe and engage in every imaginable kind of media industry.
Table: The World's Leading Media Companies
|
(* Revenues of Time Warner only (merger with AOL took place in January 2000)
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With the rise of networks and the corresponding decline of mainframe services computers have become communication devices instead of being solely computational or typewriter-like devices. Corporate networks become increasingly important and often use the Internet as a public service network to interconnect. Sometimes they are
Software companies, consulting agencies, and journalists serving their interests make some further differences by splitting up the easily understandable term
Cable TV networks and online services as
Especially for financial transactions, secure proprietary networks become increasingly important. When you transfer funds from your banking account to an account in another country, it is done through the SWIFT network, the network of the
Electronic Communications Networks as
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Another important multilateral treaty concerned with
The complete TRIPS agreement can be found on:
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Following the invention of the first
Also, ensuing the introduction of the minicomputer in the mid 1970s by the early 1980s a market for personal computers (PC) was established. As computers had become easier to use and cheaper they were no longer mainly utilized in offices and manufacturing, but also by the average consumer. Therefore the number of personal computers in use more than doubled from 2 million in 1981 to 5.5 million in 1982. Ten years later, 65 million PCs were being used.
Further developments included the creation of mobile computers (laptops and palmtops) and especially networking technology. While mainframes shared time with many terminals for many applications, networking allowed individual computers to form electronic co-operations.
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Newspapers and magazines frequently report growth rates of Internet usage, number of users, hosts, and domains that seem to be beyond all expectations. Growth rates are expected to accelerate exponentially. However, Internet measurement data are anything thant reliable and often quite fantastic constructs, that are nevertheless jumped upon by many media and decision makers because the technical difficulties in measuring Internet growth or usage are make reliable measurement techniques impossible.
Equally, predictions that the Internet is about to collapse lack any foundation whatsoever. The researchers at the
Size and Growth
In fact, "today's Internet industry lacks any ability to evaluate trends, identity performance problems beyond the boundary of a single ISP (Internet service provider, M. S.), or prepare systematically for the growing expectations of its users. Historic or current data about traffic on the Internet infrastructure, maps depicting ... there is plenty of measurement occurring, albeit of questionable quality", says K. C. Claffy in his paper Internet measurement and data analysis: topology, workload, performance and routing statistics (http://www.caida.org/Papers/Nae/, Dec 6, 1999). Claffy is not an average researcher; he founded the well-known
So his statement is a slap in the face of all market researchers stating otherwise.
In a certain sense this is ridiculous, because since the inception of the
So what are the reasons for this inability to evaluate trends, identity performance problems beyond the boundary of a single ISP? First, in early 1995, almost simultaneously with the worldwide introduction of the
"There are many estimates of the size and growth rate of the Internet that are either implausible, or inconsistent, or even clearly wrong", K. G. Coffman and Andrew, both members of different departments of
What is measured and what methods are used? Many studies are devoted to the number of users; others look at the number of computers connected to the Internet or count
You get the clue of their focus when you bear in mind that the Internet is just one of many networks of networks; it is only a part of the universe of computer networks. Additionally, the Internet has public (unrestricted) and private (restricted) areas. Most studies consider only the public Internet, Coffman and Odlyzko consider the long-distance private line networks too: the corporate networks, the
Hosts
The
Despite the small sample, this method has at least one flaw:
Internet Weather
Like daily weather, traffic on the Internet, the conditions for data flows, are monitored too, hence called Internet weather. One of the most famous Internet
Hits, Page Views, Visits, and Users
Let us take a look at how these hot lists of most visited Web sites may be compiled. I say, may be, because the methods used for data retrieval are mostly not fully disclosed.
For some years it was seemingly common sense to report requested files from a Web site, so called "hits". A method not very useful, because a document can consist of several files: graphics, text, etc. Just compile a document from some text and some twenty flashy graphical files, put it on the Web and you get twenty-one hits per visit; the more graphics you add, the more hits and traffic (not automatically to your Web site) you generate.
In the meantime page views, also called page impressions are preferred, which are said to avoid these flaws. But even page views are not reliable. Users might share computers and corresponding
Especially the editors of some electronic journals (e-journals) rely on page views as a kind of ratings or circulation measure, Rick Marin reports in the
More advanced, but just slightly better at best, is counting visits, the access of several pages of a Web site during one session. The problems already mentioned apply here too. To avoid them, newspapers, e.g., establish registration services, which require password authentication and therefore prove to be a kind of access obstacle.
But there is a different reason for these services. For content providers users are virtual users, not unique persons, because, as already mentioned, computers and
For
If you like to play around with Internet statistics instead, you can use Robert Orenstein's
Measuring the Density of
Measuring the Density of
Dodge and Shiode used data on the ownership of IP addresses from
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Generally copyright vests in the author of the work. Certain national laws provide for exceptions and, for example, regard the employer as the original owner of a copyright if the author was, when the work was created, an employee and employed for the purpose of creating that work. In the case of some types of creations, particularly audiovisual works, several national laws provide for different solutions to the question that should be the first holder of copyright in such works.
Many countries allow copyright to be assigned, which means that the owner of the copyright transfers it to another person or entity, which then becomes its holder. When the national law does not permit assignment it usually provides the possibility to license the work to someone else. Then the owner of the copyright remains the holder, but authorizes another person or entity to exercise all or some of his rights subject to possible limitations. Yet in any case the "
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Other biometric technologies not specified here include ear recognition, signature dynamics, key stroke dynamics, vein pattern recognition, retinal scan, body odour recognition, and DNA recognition. These are technologies which are either in early stages of development or used in highly specialised and limited contexts.
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1588
Agostino Ramelli designed a "reading wheel", which allowed browsing through a large number of documents without moving from one spot to another.
The device presented a large number of books - a small library - laid open on lecterns on a kind of ferry-wheel. It allowed skipping chapters and browsing through pages by turning the wheel to bring lectern after lectern before the eyes. Ramelli's reading wheel thus linked ideas and texts and reminds of today's browsing software used to navigate the
1597
The first newspaper is printed in Europe.
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Public relations usually is associated with the influencing of public opinion. Therefore it has subsequently been linked with propaganda. Using one of the many definitions of propaganda "... the manipulation of symbols as a means of influencing attitudes on controversial matters" (Harold D. Lasswell), the terms propaganda and PR seem to be easily interchangeable.
Still many authors explicitly distinguish between public relations, advertising and propaganda. Unlike PR, which is often described as objective and extensive information of the public, advertising and propaganda are associated with manipulative activities. Nevertheless to treat public relations and propaganda as equivalents stands in the tradition of PR.
Also institutions like the
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With the increased ease of the reproduction and transmission of unauthorized copies of digital works over electronic networks concerns among the copyright holder community have arisen. They fear a further growth of copyright piracy and demand adequate protection of their works. A development, which started in the mid 1990s and considers the copyright owner's apprehensions, is the creation of
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The internet can be regarded as a mirror of the variety of interests, attitudes and needs of human kind. Propaganda and disinformation in that way have to be part of it, whether they struggle for something good or evil. But the classifications do no longer function.
During the last years the internet opened up a new source for racism as it can be difficult to find the person who gave a certain message into the net. The anarchy of the internet provides racists with a lot of possibilities to reach people which they do not possess in other media, for legal and other reasons.
In the 1980s racist groups used mailboxes to communicate on an international level; the first ones to do so were supposedly the
A complete network of anti-racist organizations, including a high number of websites are fighting against racism. For example:
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Since the invention of appropriate means and technologies, communication no longer requires face-to-face meetings.
From writing and reading to using computers, expanding and exhausting one's possibilities to communicate relies more and more on the application of skills we have to learn. With the increasing importance of communication technologies, learning to apply them properly becomes a kind of rite of passage.
A Small World
From the very beginning - the first Sumerian pictographs on clay tablets - to today's state of the art technologies - broadband communication via
Since the invention of the electrical telegraph, but especially with today's growing digital communication networks, every location on earth seems to be close, however distant it may be, and also time no longer remains a significant dimension.
Threatened Cultural Memory
More and more information is transmitted and produced faster and faster, but the shelf life of information becomes more and more fragile. For more than 4500 years Sumerian pictographs written on clay tablets remained intact, but newspapers and books, printed some decades ago, crumble into pieces; film reels, video tapes and cassettes corrode. Digitalization of information is not a cure; on the contrary it even intensifies the danger of destroying cultural heritage. Data increasingly requires specific software and hardware, but to regularly convert all available digitized information is an unexecutable task.
Compared to the longevity of pictographs on clay tablets, digitized information is produced for instant one-time use. The increasing production and processing of information causes a problem hitherto unknown: the loss of our cultural memory.
For further information see
For another history of communication systems see
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Although fingerprinting smacks of police techniques used long before the dawn of the information age, its digital successor finger scanning is the most widely used biometric technology. It relies on the fact that a fingerprint's uniqueness can be defined by analysing the so-called "minutiae" in somebody's fingerprint. Minutae include sweat pores, distance between ridges, bifurcations, etc. It is estimated that the likelihood of two individuals having the same fingerprint is less than one in a billion.
As an access control device, fingerprint scanning is particularly popular with military institutions, including the Pentagon, and military research facilities. Banks are also among the principal users of this technology, and there are efforts of major credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard to incorporate this finger print recognition into the bank card environment.
Problems of inaccuracy resulting from oily, soiled or cracked skins, a major impediment in fingerprint technology, have recently been tackled by the development a contactless capturing device (
As in other biometric technologies, fingerprint recognition is an area where the "criminal justice" market meets the "security market", yet another indication of civilian spheres becomes indistinguishable from the military. The utopia of a prisonless society seems to come within the reach of a technology capable of undermining freedom by an upward spiral driven by identification needs and identification technologies.
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Although it is generally hard to distinguish between public relations and propaganda,
It furthermore played a central role in the Gulf War. On behalf of the Kuwaiti government it presented a 15-year-old girl to testify before Congress about human rights violations in a Kuwaiti hospital. The girl, later found out to be the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S., and its testimony then became the centerpiece of a finely tuned PR campaign orchestrated by Hill & Knowlton and co-ordinated with the White House on behalf of the government of Kuwait an the Citizens for a Free Kuwait group. Inflaming public opinion against Iraq and bringing the U.S. Congress in favor of war in the Gulf, this probably was one of the largest and most effective public relations campaigns in history.
Running campaigns against abortion for the Catholic Church and representing the
Accused of pursuing potentially illegal proxy spying operation for intelligence agencies, Richard Cheney, head of Hill & Knowltons New York office, denied this allegations, but said that "... in such a large organization you never know if there's not some sneak operation going on." On the other hand former
(Source: Carlisle, Johan: Public Relationships: Hill & Knowlton, Robert Gray, and the CIA.
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During the 1940s and 1950s two major developments enabled the design of modern
Numerical control was invented during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It is a method of controlling machine tool axes by means of numbers that have been coded on media. The first numerical control machine was presented in 1952 at the
First teleoperators were developed in the early 1940s. Teleoperators are mechanical manipulators which are controlled by a human from a remote location. In its typical application a human moves a mechanical arm and hand with its moves being duplicated at another location.
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- Education files, insurance files, tax files, communication files, consumption files, medical files, travel files, criminal files, investment files, files into infinity ...
Critical Art Ensemble
Global data bodies
1. Introduction
Informatisation has meant that things that once were "real", i.e. whose existence could be experienced sensually, are becoming virtual. Instead of the real existence of a thing, the virtual refers to its possibility of existence. As this process advances, an increasing identification of the possible with the real occurs. Reality migrates into a dim and dematerialised grey area. In the end, the possible counts for the real, virtualisation creates an "as-if" experience.
The experience of the body is also affected by this process. For example, in bio-technology, the human body and its functions are digitised, which prepares and understanding of the body exlusively in terms of its potential manipulation, the body becomes whatever it could be. But digitisation has not only affected the understanding and the social significance of the body, it has also altered the meaning of presence, traditionally identified with the body. The advance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has meant that for an increasing number of activities we no longer need be physically present, our "virtual" presence, achieved by logging onto a electronic information network, is sufficient.
This development, trumpeted as the pinnacle of convenience by the ICT industries and governments interested in attracting investment, has deeply problematic aspects as well. For example, when it is no longer "necessary" to be physically present, it may soon no longer be possible or allowed. Online-banking, offered to customers as a convenience, is also serves as a justification for charging higher fees from those unwilling or unable to add banking to their household chores. Online public administration may be expected to lead to similar effects. The reason for this is that the digitalisation of the economy relies on the production of surplus data. Data has become the most important raw material of modern economies.
In modern economies, informatisation and virtualisation mean that people are structurally forced to carry out their business and life their lives in such a way as to generate data.
Data are the most important resource for the New Economy. By contrast, activities which do not leave behind a trace of data, as for example growing your own carrots or paying cash rather than by plastic card, are discouraged and structurally suppressed.
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Art has always contributed a lot to disinformation.
Many modern tools for disinformation are used in art/photography.
Trillions of photographs have been taken in the 20th century. Too many to look at, too many to control them and their use. A paradise for manipulation.
We have to keep in mind: There is the world, and there exist pictures of the world, which does not mean that both are the same thing. Photographs are not objective, because the photographer selects the part of the world which is becoming a picture. The rest is left out.
Some tools for manipulation of photography are:
morphing (71)
wet operation (73)
neutralizing (74)
masks (75)
damnatio memoriae (78)
Some of those are digital ways of manipulation, which helps to change pictures in many ways without showing the manipulation.
Pictures taken from the internet could be anything and come from anywhere. To proof the source is nearly impossible. Therefore scientists created on watermarks for pictures, which make it impossible to "steal" or manipulate a picture out of the net.
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Each definition of the Internet is a simplified statement and runs the risk of being outdated within a short time. What is usually referred to as the Internet is a network of thousands of computer networks (so called autonomous systems) run by governmental authorities, companies, and universities, etc. Generally speaking, every time a user connects to a computer networks, a new Internet is created. Technically speaking, the Internet is a
What constitutes the Internet is constantly changing. Certainly the state of the future Net will be different to the present one. Some years ago the Internet could still be described as a network of computer networks using a common communication protocol, the so-called
Also, the Internet is not solely constituted by computers connected to other computers, because there are also point-of-sale terminals, cameras, robots, telescopes, cellular phones, TV sets and and an assortment of other hardware components that are connected to the Internet.
At the core of the Internet are so-called
Since these networks are often privately owned, any description of the Internet as a public network is not an accurate. It is easier to say what the Internet is not than to say what it is. On 24 October, 1995 the U.S.
What is generally and in a simplyfiying manner called the Internet, may be better referred to as the Matrix, a term introduced by science fiction writer
Strictly speaking, the Matrix is not a medium; it is a platform for resources: for media and services. The Matrix is mainly a very powerful means for making information easily accessible worldwide, for sending and receiving messages, videos, texts and audio files, for transferring funds and trading securities, for sharing resources, for collecting weather condition data, for
For a comprehensive view of uses of the Matrix, especially the World Wide Web, see "
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The main concern of copyright owners as the (in terms of
Reproduction and Distribution
Unlike copies of works made using analog copiers (photocopy machines, video recorders etc.) digital information can be reproduced extremely fast, at low cost and without any loss in quality. Since each copy is a perfect copy, no quality-related limits inhibit pirates from making as many copies as they please, and recipients of these copies have no incentive to return to authorized sources to get another qualitatively equal product. Additionally the costs of making one extra copy of intellectual property online are insignificant, as are the distribution costs if the copy is moved to the end user over the Internet.
Control and Manipulation
In cross-border, global data networks it is almost impossible to control the exploitation of protected works. Particularly the use of anonymous remailers and other existing technologies complicates the persecution of pirates. Also digital files are especially vulnerable to manipulation, of the work itself, and of the (in some cases) therein-embedded
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In what follows there is a brief description of the principal biometric technologies, whose respective proponents - producers, research laboratories, think tanks - mostly tend to claim superiority over the others. A frequently used definition of "biometric" is that of a "unique, measurable characteristic or trait of a human being for automatically recognizing or verifying identity" (
All biometric technologies are made up of the same basic processes:
1. A sample of a biometric is first collected, then transformed into digital information and stored as the "biometric template" of the person in question.
2. At every new identification, a second sample is collected and its identity with the first one is examined.
3. If the two samples are identical, the persons identity is confirmed, i.e. the system knows who the person is.
This means that access to the facility or resource can be granted or denied. It also means that information about the persons behaviour and movements has been collected. The system now knows who passed a certain identification point at which time, at what distance from the previous time, and it can combine these data with others, thereby appropriating an individual's data body.
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Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy graduated from Marquette in 1935. In 1939, he won election as a circuit court judge. During World War II, he enlisted in the Marines and served in the Pacific. In 1944, he campaigned for senator but lost in the Republican primary. In 1946, he ran for Wisconsin's other senate seat.
In a 1950 speech, McCarthy entered the public spotlight by claiming that communists had "infested" the State Department, dramatically waving a sheet of paper which purportedly contained the traitors' names. A special Senate committee investigated the charges and found them groundless. Unfazed, McCarthy used his position to wage a relentless anti-communist crusade, denouncing numerous public figures and holding a series of highly confrontational hearings, ruining the careers of many people.
He died at the age of 49 of complications related to alcoholism.
Oscar Flingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854-1900) is one of the best and most famous poets and novelists of England of his time. His satirical and amusing texts exposed the false moral of the Bourgeoisie publicly. Besides, his life as a dandy made him the leader of aesthetics in England, until he was sent to prison because of homosexuality. Afterwards he lived in Paris where he died lonely and nearly forgotten in a hotel in 1900. His poems, fairy tales, novels and dramas survived.
In November 1997, after the assassination of (above all Swiss) tourists in Egypt, the Swiss newspaper Blick showed a picture of the place where the attack had happened, with a tremendous pool of blood, to emphasize the cruelty of the Muslim terrorists. In other newspapers the same picture could be seen - with a pool of water, like in the original. Of course the manipulated coloured version of the Blick fit better into the mind of the shocked Swiss population. The question about death penalty arose quickly ....
Founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and headquartered in Cupertino, USA, Apple Computer was the first commercially successful personal computer company.
In 1978 Wozniak invented the first personal computer, the Apple II.
For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,115726+1+108787,00.html
Claude Chappe built a fixed optical network between Paris and Lille. Covering a distance of about 240kms, it consisted of fifteen towers with semaphores.
Because this communication system was destined to practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such secretly, even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning, they just transmitted codes they did not understand. Depending on weather conditions, messages could be sent at a speed of 2880 kms/hr at best.
Forerunners of Chappe's optical network are the
For more information on early communication networks see
This book gives a fascinating glimpse of the many documented attempts throughout history to develop effective means for long distance communications. Large-scale communication networks are not a twentieth-century phenomenon. The oldest attempts date back to millennia before Christ and include ingenious uses of homing pigeons, mirrors, flags, torches, and beacons. The first true nationwide data networks, however, were being built almost two hundred years ago. At the turn of the 18th century, well before the electromagnetic telegraph was invented, many countries in Europe already had fully operational data communications systems with altogether close to one thousand network stations. The book shows how the so-called information revolution started in 1794, with the design and construction of the first true telegraph network in France, Chappe's fixed optical network.
http://www.it.kth.se/docs/early_net/
American science fiction author. Most famous novel: Neuromancer.
For resources as writings and interviews available on the Internet see http://www.lib.loyno.edu/bibl/wgibson.htm
DSL connections are high-speed data connections over copper wire telephone lines. As with cable connections, with DSL you can look up information on the Internet and make a phone call at the same time but you do not need to have a new or additional cable or line installed. One of the most prominent DSL services is ISDN (integrated services digital network, for more information click here (
The term refers to the separation of a work process into a number of tasks, with each task performed by a separate person or group of persons. It is most often applied to
b. December 3, 1903, Budapest, Hungary
d. February 8, 1957, Washington, D.C., U.S.
Mathematician who made important contributions in quantum physics, logic, meteorology, and computer science. His theory of games had a significant influence upon economics. In computer theory, von Neumann did much of the pioneering work in logical design, in the problem of obtaining reliable answers from a machine with unreliable components, the function of "memory," machine imitation of "randomness," and the problem of constructing automata that can reproduce their own kind.
Being an organization established in the name of the US government, the Federal Networking Council (FNC) acts as a forum for networking collaborations among Federal agencies to meet their research, education, and operational mission goals and to bridge the gap between the advanced networking technologies being developed by research FNC agencies and the ultimate acquisition of mature version of these technologies from the commercial sector.
Its members are representatives of agencies as the National Security Agency, the Department of Energy, the
http://www.fnc.gov
The first of the great medieval universities was established at Bologna. At the beginning, universities predominantly offered a kind of do-it-yourself publishing service.
Books still had to be copied by hand and were so rare that a copy of a widely desired book qualified for being invited to a university. Holding a lecture equaled to reading a book aloud, like a priest read from the Bible during services. Attending a lecture equaled to copy a lecture word by word, so you had your own copy of a book, thus enabling you to hold a lecture, too.
For further details see History of the Idea of a University,
Themistocles, a Greek politician and general, conquered the Persians in the battle of Salamis, in 480 BC. The Persians, under their King
For further details see:
Universally accepted system of writing used by and for blind persons and consisting of a code of 63 characters, each made up of one to six raised dots arranged in a six-position matrix or cell. These Braille characters are embossed in lines on paper and read by passing the fingers lightly over the manuscript. Louis Braille, who was blinded at the age of three, invented the system in 1824 while a student at the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children), Paris.
Founded in 1851 in London, Reuters is the world's largest news and television agency with 1,946 journalists, photographers and camera operators in 183 bureaus serving newspapers, other news agencies, and radio and television broadcasters in 157 countries.
In addition to its traditional news-agency business, over its network Reuters provides financial information and a wide array of electronic trading and brokering services to banks, brokering houses, companies, governments, and individuals worldwide.
http://www.reuters.com
The ICPC aims at reducing the number of incidents of damages to submarine telecommunications cables by hazards.
The Committee also serves as a forum for the exchange of technical and legal information pertaining to submarine cable protection methods and programs and funds projects and programs, which are beneficial for the protection of submarine cables.
Membership is restricted to authorities (governmental administrations or commercial companies) owning or operating submarine telecommunications cables. As of May 1999, 67 members representing 38 nations were members.
http://www.iscpc.org
The Ku Klux Klan has a long history of violence. It emerged out of the resentment and hatred many white Southerners. Black Americans are not considered human beings. While the menace of the KKK has peaked and waned over the years, it has never vanished.
Joseph Stalin (1879-1953):
After Lenin's death he took over and became a dictator without any limits of power. Everyone who dared to talk or act against him or was in suspicion of doing so, got killed. Millions were murdered. His empire was one made out of propaganda and fear. As long as he was in power his picture had to be in every flat and bureau. Soon after his death the cult was stopped and in 1956 the De-Stalination was started, though he was partly rehabilitated in 1970.
The Internet Engineering Task Force contributes to the evolution of the architecture, the protocols and technologies of the Net by developing new Internet standard specifications. The directors of its functional areas form the
Internet Society:
The Internet Societal Task Force is an organization under the umbrella of the Internet Society dedicated to assure that the Internet is for everyone by identifying and characterizing social and economic issues associated with the growth and use of Internet. It supplements the technical tasks of the
Topics under discussion are social, economic, regulatory, physical barriers to the use of the Net, privacy, interdependencies of Internet penetration rates and economic conditions, regulation and taxation.
On behalf of the
Official name Church Of Scientology, religio-scientific movement developed in the United States in the 1950s by the author L. Ron Hubbard (1911-86). The Church of Scientology was formally established in the United States in 1954 and was later incorporated in Great Britain and other countries. The scientific basis claimed by the church for its diagnostic and therapeutic practice is disputed, and the church has been criticized for the financial demands that it makes on its followers. From the 1960s the church and various of its officials or former officials faced government prosecutions as well as private lawsuits on charges of fraud, tax evasion, financial mismanagement, and conspiring to steal government documents, while the church on the other hand claimed it was being persecuted by government agencies and by established medical organizations. Some former Scientology officials have charged that Hubbard used the tax-exempt status of the church to build a profitable business empire.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (~4 BC - 65 AD), originally coming from Spain, was a Roman philosopher, statesman, orator and playwright with a lot of influence on the Roman cultural life of his days. Involved into politics, his pupil
The firm began in Germany in 1835, when Carl Bertelsmann founded a religious print shop and publishing establishment in the Westphalian town of Gütersloh. The house remained family-owned and grew steadily for the next century, gradually adding literature, popular fiction, and theology to its title list. Bertelsmann was shut down by the Nazis in 1943, and its physical plant was virtually destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945. The quick growth of the Bertelsmann empire after World War II was fueled by the establishment of global networks of book clubs (from 1950) and music circles (1958). By 1998 Bertelsmann AG comprised more than 300 companies concentrated on various aspects of media. During fiscal year 1997-98, Bertelsmann earned more than US$15 billion in revenue and employed 58.000 people, of whom 24.000 worked in Germany.
b. Nov. 2, 1815, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England
d. Dec. 8, 1864, Ballintemple, County Cork, Ireland
English mathematician who helped establish modern symbolic logic and whose algebra of logic, now called Boolean algebra, is basic to the design of digital computer circuits. One of the first Englishmen to write on logic, Boole pointed out the analogy between the algebraic symbols and those that can represent logical forms and syllogisms, showing how the symbols of quantity can be separated from those of operation. With Boole in 1847 and 1854 began the algebra of logic, or what is now called Boolean algebra. It is basically two-valued in that it involves a subdivision of objects into separate classes, each with a given property. Different classes can then be treated as to the presence or absence of the same property.
A proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary between a workstation user and the Internet so that security, administrative control, and caching service can be ensured.
A proxy server receives a request for an Internet service (such as a Web page request) from a user. If it passes filtering requirements, the proxy server, assuming it is also a cache server, looks in its local cache of previously downloaded Web pages. If it finds the page, it returns it to the user without needing to forward the request to the Internet. If the page is not in the cache, the proxy server, acting as a client on behalf of the user, uses one of its own
Source: Whatis.com
With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation's history. Roosevelt's youth differed sharply from that of the log cabin Presidents. He was born in New York City in 1858 into a wealthy family. Roosevelt steered the United States more actively into world politics. He liked to quote a favorite proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick. . . . "
He won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War.
for more information see the official website:
Founded in 1973 by 239 banks from 15 countries, SWIFT is responsible for maintaining the world's most important network dedicated to financial transaction processing.
Although facing competition from smart cards, e.g., SWIFT can rely on an increasing clientèle. In September 1999 SWIFT served 6,710 live users in 189 countries.
Internet exchanges are intersecting points between major networks.
List of the World's Public Internet exchanges (
User tracking is a generic term that covers all the techniques of monitoring the movements of a user on a web site. User tracking has become an essential component in online commerce, where no personal contact to customers is established, leaving companies with the predicament of not knowing who they are talking to. Some companies, such as
Whenever user tracking is performed without the explicit agreement of the user, or without laying open which data are collected and what is done with them, considerable
Based at the University of California's San Diego Supercomputer Center, CAIDA supports cooperative efforts among the commercial, government and research communities aimed at promoting a scalable, robust Internet infrastructure. It is sponsored by the
Intelsat, the world's biggest communication satellite services provider, is still mainly owned by governments, but will be privatised during 2001, like
http://www.intelsat.int/index.htm
Japanese SONY KK, major Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronics products. Headquarters are in Tokyo. The company was incorporated in 1946 and spearheaded Japan's drive to become the world's dominant consumer electronics manufacturer in the late 20th century. The company was one of the first to recognize the potential of the consumer videotape market. In 1972 it formed an affiliate to market its Betamax colour videocassette system. In 1987-88 Sony purchased the CBS Records Group from CBS Inc., thus acquiring the world's largest record company. It followed that purchase with the purchase in 1989 of Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc.
The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within visible range of each other and had a total length of about 4500 kilometers. It was used for military signaling.
For a similar telegraph network in ancient Greece see
b. April 14, 1907, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
d. April 21, 1971, Port-au-Prince
By name PAPA DOC, president of Haiti whose 14-year regime was of unprecedented duration in that country. A supporter of President Dumarsais Estimé, Duvalier was appointed director general of the National Public Health Service in 1946. He was appointed underminister of labour in 1948 and the following year became minister of public health and labour, a post that he retained until May 10, 1950, when President Estimé was overthrown by a military junta under Paul E. Magloire, who was subsequently elected president. By 1954 he had become the central opposition figure and went underground. Duvalier was elected president in September 1957. Setting about to consolidate his power, he reduced the size of the army and organized the Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), a private force responsible for terrorizing and assassinating alleged foes of the regime. Late in 1963 Duvalier moved further toward an absolutist regime, promoting a cult of his person as the semi divine embodiment of the Haitian nation. In April 1964 he was declared president for life. Although diplomatically almost completely isolated, excommunicated by the Vatican until 1966 for harassing the clergy, and threatened by conspiracies against him, Duvalier was able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors.
A Local Area Network is an office network, a network restricted to a building area.
Telnet allows you to login remotely on a computer connected to the Internet.
The best known of the two-key cryptosystems developed in the mid-1980s is the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) cryptoalgorithm, which was first published in April, 1977. Since that time, the algorithm has been employed in the most widely-used Internet electronic communications encryption program,
GE is a major American corporation and one of the largest and most diversified corporations in the world. Its products include electrical and electronic equipment, plastics, aircraft engines, medical imaging equipment, and financial services. The company was incorporated in 1892, and in 1986 GE purchased the RCA Corporation including the RCA-owned television network, the National Broadcasting Company, Inc. In 1987, however, GE sold RCA's consumer electronics division to Thomson SA, a state-owned French firm, and purchased Thomson's medical technology division. In 1989 GE agreed to combine its European business interests in appliances, medical systems, electrical distribution, and power systems with the unrelated British corporation General Electric Company. Headquarters are in Fairfield, Conn., U.S.
AT&T Corporation provides voice, data and video communications services to large and small businesses, consumers and government entities. AT&T and its subsidiaries furnish domestic and international long distance, regional, local and wireless communications services, cable television and Internet communications services. AT&T also provides billing, directory and calling card services to support its communications business. AT&T's primary lines of business are business services, consumer services, broadband services and wireless services. In addition, AT&T's other lines of business include network management and professional services through AT&T Solutions and international operations and ventures. In June 2000, AT&T completed the acquisition of MediaOne Group. With the addition of MediaOne's 5 million cable subscribers, AT&T becomes the country's largest cable operator, with about 16 million customers on the systems it owns and operates, which pass nearly 28 million American homes. (source: Yahoo)
Slogan: "It's all within your reach"
Business indicators:
Sales 1999: $ 62.391 bn (+ 17,2 % from 1998)
Market capitalization: $ 104 bn
Employees: 107,800
Corporate website:
Being itself under the umbrella of the
The first half of the 20th century was the era of the vacuum tube in electronics. This variety of electron tube permitted the development of radio broadcasting, long-distance
The Enigma Encryption Machine was famous for its insecurities as for the security that it gave to German ciphers. It was broken, first by the Poles in the 1930s, then by the British in World War II.
Adi Shamir was one of three persons in a team to invent the
The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, the Center seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. The Center is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.
http://www.cdt.org
Headquartered in San Jose, USA, AboveNet Communications is a
http://www.above.net
Bruce Schneier is president of Counterpane Systems in Minneapolis. This consulting enterprise specialized in cryptography and computer security. He is the author of the book Applied Cryptography and inventor of the Blowfish and Twofish encryption algorithms.
Although referred to as a single body of rules, there is not just one Netiquette, but there are several, though overlapping largely. Proposing general guidelines for posting messages to newsgroups and mailing lists and using the
Well-known Netiquettes are the
The "word" Kosov@ is a compromise between the Serb name KosovO and the Albanian KosovA. It is mostly used by international people who want to demonstrate a certain consciousness about the conflict including some sort of neutrality, believing that neither the one side nor the other (and maybe not even
For more explanations (in German) see:
In the 1920s the Hollow Earth Theory was very popular in Germany. With the acceptance and support of the NAZI regime Karl Neupert wrote the book Geokosmos. With the help of this book the theory became a cult in Germany.
The U.S. Data Encryption Standard (= DES) is the most widely used encryption algorithm, especially used for protection of financial transactions. It was developed by IBM in 1971. It is a symmetric-key cryptosystem. The DES algorithm uses a 56-bit encryption key, meaning that there are 72,057,594,037,927,936 possible keys.
for more information see:
Boris Yeltsin was Russian President until the end of 1999. After many years of work for the Communist Party, he joined the Politburo in 1986. His sharp critique on Mikhail Gorbachev forced that one to resign. Yeltsin won the 1990 election into Russian presidency and quit the Communist Party. Quarrels with the Parliament could not destroy his popularity until the secession war with Chechnya. When the Russian economy collapsed in 1998, he dismissed his entire government. In the end the sick old man of Russian politics had lost all his popularity as a president and resigned for the benefit of his political son Vladimir Putin.
The News Corporation Ltd., a global media holding company, which governed News Limited (Australia), News International (U.K.), and News America Holdings Inc. (U.S.) was founded by the Australian-born newspaper publisher and media entrepreneur, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's corporate interests center on newspaper, magazine, book, and electronic publishing; television broadcasting; and film and video production, principally in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
A BBS (bulletin board system) is a computer that can be reached by computer modem dialing (you need to know the phone number) or, in some cases, by
Bulletin board systems originated and generally operate independently of the Internet.
Source: Whatis.com
The Council for Mutual Economic Aid (COMECON) was set up in 1949 consisting of six East European countries: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR, followed later by the German Democratic Republic (1950), Mongolia (1962), Cuba (1972), and Vietnam (1978). Its aim was, to develop the member countries' economies on a complementary basis for the purpose of achieving self-sufficiency. In 1991, Comecon was replaced by the Organization for International Economic Cooperation.
Network information centers are organizations responsible for registering and maintaining the domain names on the
Instinet, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Agostino Ramelli designed a "reading wheel" which allowed browsing through a large number of documents without moving from one spot.
Presenting a large number of books, a small library, laid open on lecterns on a kind of ferry-wheel, allowing us to skip chapters and to browse through pages by turning the wheel to bring lectern after lectern before our eyes, thus linking ideas and texts together, Ramelli's reading wheel reminds of today's browsing software used to navigate the
According to Barbrook and Cameron there is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. In this paper they are calling this orthodoxy the Californian Ideology in honor of the state where it originated. By naturalizing and giving a technological proof to a political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless and - horror of horrors - unfashionable. - This paper argues for an interactive future.
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/HRC/ci/calif.html